Why An All-Female Ghostbusters Is Important

It’s happened. After all of the rumors, all of the fantasy casting, and all of the hype, it’s really real. Paul Feig is rebooting Ghostbusters with Katie Dippold, his co-writer on The Heat.

Cool, right? Of course it is. Ghostbusters is a classic, and more Ghostbusters was almost inevitable at this point. And now, Ghostbusters will have an all-lady protagonist team!

Let me tell you why you should care:

~Because, in the year Two Thousand and Fourteen, this is STILL news. This is a smart move; a move that people WANT, and a move that’s in the right direction. The movie-loving audience at large has been scrutinizing why on Earth we haven’t had a Wonder Woman movie yet, or why Marvel can make movie after movie with white actors named Chris in the lead row but we can’t have a person of color or a woman lead. We are increasingly aware of inequality and increasingly clamoring for change. And here is Paul Feig, going along and giving us exactly what we want, and trying to pave the way so that maybe this doesn’t have to be SO DAMN IMPORTANT a few years down the line.~Because movies with all men in them represent the human experience and movies with all women in them are niche. Feig brought this point up brilliantly in his interview, and it’s something that I have written about previously. We are willing to watch movies with all dudes (or more frequently, all dudes and a token female) but as soon as something mostly has ladies in it, it’s a chick flick. We’ve grown so used to seeing more men than women in media, despite women being half of the population, that if filmmakers DO go through the effort to show parity we actually think there are too many women!

~Because movies with diversity in them DO WELL. It is a fact. Audiences want to see representation, they want to see the breakdown of clichés, and they want to see new stories being told with a plurality of people across race/gender/orientation/class lines.

~Because technology, sci-fi and fantasy, comic books and video games have ALWAYS BEEN consumed/created by women. Hell, the first novel was written by a woman. The concept of the “rise of the Geek Girl” is a lie that you have been fed. There have always been girls and women interested in nerdy things. “Geek Girls” didn’t suddenly spring out of the ether – they’ve always been around. The only thing that has changed is the visibility of geek girls. Frankly, it’s about damn time that the market acknowledges that women consume and create as much nerd/genre media as men.

~Because there are so many women actresses who don’t fit the sexy lamp mold, and there are others that do but have been aching to be given something to do.

This is good for actresses, for women filmmakers. It’s good for the movie-going public. It’s good for women. Hell, it’s good for PEOPLE.

Jacqueline Steiger is jumping back into the industry full-force after a break for school (graduated summa cum laude from UCLA, to brag). She has been enjoying taking classes and working on both sides of the camera this time around. As a child she was lucky enough to work with some of the industry's greatest, including Danny DeVito and Sally Field. Outside of the industry, Jacqueline enjoys all things sci-fi/fantasy, anime, and anything with melted cheese on it. She is an LA native. Check out her webseries, Force Push (about a group of nerds that try all sorts of weird experiments to get Jedi Powers) here: http://youtube.com/forcepushseries (It does pass the Bechel test, of course.)

SUBSCRIBE

Archives

find articles by author

Social

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Ms. In The Biz Entertainment INC, its editor, writers, sponsors, or affiliates.